PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2016

PACKAGING 32 PET planet Insider Vol. 17 No. 11/16 www.petpla.net PET packaging of ready-to-drink teas and more Hot-filled – cold-chilled Based on an article by Dominik Appoltshauser, Krones AG Hot-filled ice tea – a definite success story for Leão Alimen- tos e Bebidas. As part of Coca-Cola Brasil and its regional producers, the company is responsible for administering the entire production chain of the national line with still bever- ages, teas and energy drinks from the domestic Coca-Cola portfolio. In order to upgrade the quality and natural good- ness of the ready-to-drink teas and soft drinks being pro- duced, and to upsize the filling capacities, the company has since 2010 installed three new complete lines and a syrup kitchen from Krones at its facility in Linhares. As a market leader, Leão is actively involved in the Brazilian econ- omy, creates jobs, and thus invests in several of the country’s regions. The production facilities in Linhares (Espiritu Santo), Americana (São Paulo), plus Fazenda Rio Grande and Fernandes Pinheiro, both of them in the Paraná region, make numerous highly disparate products that refresh- ingly quench the thirst of millions of Brazilians all over the country with a huge choice of squashes, mixed drinks, juices, soft drinks, teas, choco- late and wellness beverages, plus energy drinks. Ready-to-drink tea in PET At the two production facilities in Paraná State, Yerba Mate is refined and roasted, the concentrates for the ready-to-drink tea line are prepared and in addition the tea brands Leão Fuze and Matte Leão for self-brewing are produced. Another plant in Espiritu Santo produces fruit purees from passion-fruit, mango and guava for two filling facilities, in which subse- quently the squashes, fruit juices and fruit-based mixed drinks are filled in beverage carton packs and in cans. In Linhares, Leão also produces ready- to-drink teas and soft drinks, which are then bottled in PET containers. Linhares is located on the Atlan- tic coast in the state of Espiritu Santo, about 700km north-east of Rio de Janeiro. The plant there accommodates beverage cartoning lines, canning lines and now three PET lines from Krones. Since the company attaches high priority to producing and fill- ing its drinks in as natural a state as possible, and above all without any preservatives, the group changed over its filling modalities for ready- to-drink teas to PET containers: from cold-filling with preservatives to hot-filling without them. The plant in Linhares was an obvious choice for this. “We’ve always aimed to install innovations and high-tech in our facili- ties,” explains Dirk Schneider, Leão’s German-born Industrial Director, whose remit covers all of the com- pany’s production plants. He has lived in Brazil for 15 years, and since 2013 has been responsible for technology, engineering, innovations, safety and operational quality. In 2010, Leão was already operat- ing a PET hotfill line from Krones in Linhares. The first product bottled there was Powerade. For making some of its products, two more hotfill PET lines were ordered from Krones. Due to what were back then high levels of demand for beverages in this category, Leão swiftly upped the production output by 50%. When the new lines were installed, there were two challenges that had to be mas- tered: firstly, the hall area selected, The DecoBloc’s technology enables the containers to be dressed in either sleeves or wrap- around labels.